Page:Marching on Niagara.djvu/12

iv and take part in Braddock's bitter defeat and Washington's masterly effort to save the remnant of the army from total annihilation.

The defeat of the British forces left this section of the English colonies at the mercy of both the French and their savage Indian allies, and for two years, despite all that Washington and other colonial leaders could do, every isolated cabin and every small settlement west of Winchester was in constant danger, and numerous raids were made, savage and brutal in the extreme, and these were kept up until the arrival of General Forbes, who, aided by Washington and others, finally compelled the French to abandon Fort Duquesne, and thus restored peace and order to a frontier covering a distance of several hundred miles.

Following General Forbes's success at Fort Duquesne (now the enterprising city of Pittsburg), came English successes in other quarters, not the least of which was the capture of Fort Niagara, standing on the east bank of the Niagara River, where that stream flows into Lake Ontario. This fort was of vast importance to the French, for it guarded the way through the lakes and down the mighty Mississippi to their Louisiana territory. In the expedition against Fort Niagara both David and Henry Morris take an active part, and as brave